'Sickeningly evil' AI boss says ChatGPT is more energy efficient than growing a person

Sam Altman called an 'anti-human human' after 'totally insane' comments defending AI's environment impact

OpenAI boss Sam Altman has been called 'sickeningly evil' and 'anti-human' after appearing to equate the energy used up by AI with what is needed to 'grow' a person.

The ChatGPT chief was attempting to hit back at claims that each query slurps eye‑watering amounts of water, calling the criticism "totally fake" and that people are forgetting just how much energy humans use too.

However, by comparing AI to people, Altman has been blasted by many online, with one technologist saying we "do not want to see a world where we equate a piece of technology to a human being".

"Don’t use ChatGPT, it’s 17 gallons of water for each query or whatever," he said, before dismissing it outright. "This is completely untrue, totally insane, no connection to reality."

Speaking at an event hosted by The Indian Express was part of a major AI summit, Altman said: "Don’t use ChatGPT, it’s 17 gallons of water for each query or whatever. This is completely untrue, totally insane, no connection to reality."

He said older data centres used evaporative cooling - a water‑thirsty system - but insisted that’s no longer the case for OpenAI. Even so, he accepted there’s a legitimate issue.

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Altman said: "It’s fair to be concerned about the energy consumption — not per query, but in total, because the world is now using so much AI. The world needs to move towards nuclear, wind, and solar very quickly."

There’s currently no legal requirement for tech giants to publicly disclose exactly how much energy and water they get through - a sore point for scientists trying to track the real‑world footprint of the AI boom. Critics warn that clustering vast server farms can strain local grids and, in some cases, be linked to rising electricity prices the-mirror-icon_news_science_sam-altman.

Altman pushed back on a claim that a single ChatGPT question could burn through the equivalent of 1.5 iPhone battery charges. He said: "There’s no way it’s anything close to that much."

He argued the whole debate is often framed unfairly - focusing on how much energy it takes to train an AI model, then comparing that to the tiny cost of a human doing one task.

"It also takes a lot of energy to train a human,” Altman said. “It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart.

"And not only that, it took the very widespread evolution of the 100 billion people that have ever lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and learned how to figure out science and whatever, to produce you. AI has already caught up on an energy efficiency basis."

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Scientist Sridhar Vembu posted on X: “I do not want to see a world where we equate a piece of technology to a human being. I work hard as a technologist to see a world where we don’t allow technology to dominate our lives; instead, it should quietly recede into the background."

One Reddit, one user said: "It really is one of the most frightening things I've ever seen a techbro say. Like, he literally doesn't seem to understand that human life has value beyond whatever cost/benefit analysis he applies to implementing lines of code."

Another said: "They're anti-human humans. The most sickeningly evil thing imaginable."